Five-setters Provide Experience for Future
10/30/2018 1:26:00 PM | Women's Volleyball
HATTIESBURG, Miss. – Volleyball is a chess match - you try to hit the ball where the other team isn't and vice versa. And when four sets have passed and a winner hasn't been determined, the game hits a boiling point.
At that point, it's up to experience. Sure, a fifth set can be mimicked in practice, but the actual pressure of a fifth set is hard to match. Luckily, for Stephanie Radecki and the Southern Miss volleyball team, there is no shortage of fifth-set experience.
"It gives great experience to our players knowing that we've had so many opportunities to compete in fifth sets," Radecki said. "It's just a completely different feel in the fifth set and a lot of teams will go through a season and not advance to a fifth set, so when they get into that situation there is a lot of pressure and there's a lot of stress."
Of the 25 matches the squad has played, eight of them have gone to five sets. As of Oct. 25, of the 336 NCAA Division I volleyball teams, the Golden Eagles are just one of 22 teams to play at least eight five-setters. Oddly enough, two of those 22 teams have wound up on the Southern Miss schedule.
Samford has played 11 five-setters, one of which came against the Golden Eagles. Southern Miss jumped to a two-set lead before the Bulldogs attempted to mount a comeback before falling short. Charlotte, the other, has participated in 12 five-set matches. When Southern Miss knocked off the 49ers, it only took four sets.
While some people could look at playing five sets as a negative, Radecki takes an opposite approach, and it's for a good reason.
"You look at the positives of everything you gain in that fifth set and realize you can't mask that in practice," Radecki said. "You can't recreate that to 100 percent.
"You can't really set that up exactly what it's going to be like in a match in practice."
The level of talent the Southern Miss team has played in five-setters is no slouch either. The combined record of those eight teams is 121-72. The standouts of the group are No. 12 Purdue and No. 31 Rice. The Golden Eagles took both teams to five sets, but both fifth sets were fought tooth and nail.
Against Purdue, the Golden Eagles fell in the final set, 21-19. In a C-USA battle, they fell 15-12 in the final set against Rice. Just two points decided 12 of the 40 sets played in those eight matches and only three points decided nine of the sets.
Those heartbreaking losses don't characterize a season, but rather build experience to make a defining moment later in the season.Â
"I feel like our players should feel extremely prepared if they're in that situation again," Radecki said. "They know we're prepared and ready for any situation like that."